The directors of French theatres are accustomed to send criticisms of the plays which "they regret to be unable to accept."
The criticism I received from the director of the Ambigu Theatre was, I thought, highly encouraging.
"My play," it appeared, "showed no experience of the stage; but it was full of well-conceived scenes and happy mots, and was written in excellent French. Horrors, however, were too piled up, and I seemed to have forgotten that spectators should be allowed time to take breath and wipe away their tears."
I was finally advised not to kill all my dramatis personæ in my next dramatic production, as it was customary for one of them to come forward and announce the name of the author at the end of the first performance.
Although this little bit of advice appeared to me not altogether free from satire, there was in the letter more praise than I had expected, and I felt proud and happy. The letter was passed round in the class-room, commented upon in the playground, and I was so excited that I can perfectly well remember how I forgot to learn my repetition that day, and how I got forty lines of the Ars Poetica to write out five times.
What a take-down, this imposition upon a budding dramatic author!
Examinations to prepare compelled me for some time to postpone all idea of astonishing the Paris playgoers with a "new and original" drama.
I took my B.A. at the end of that year, and my B.Sc. at the end of the following one. Three years later I was leaving the military school with the rank of sub-lieutenant.
My uniform was lovely; and if I had only had as much gold in my pockets as on my shoulders, sleeves, and breast, I think I ought to have been the happiest being on earth.